


Don't Panic!

by Sheffield



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a quiet little dinner at the Residence goes horribly wrong... don't panic!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Panic!

"Roic is going to be mortified if he wakes up with his head in his emperor's lap, you know, Gregor," Miles said. 

Gregor glanced over and flicked him a quick smile. "He'll just have to live with it." 

Aral and Simon were still out cold, neatly laid out side by side along with his armsman Donal and that boy from Sergyar whose name Gregor couldn't remember. Miles' seizure was starting to wear off although Gregor had had to order him flat out to stay, well, flat out on the floor till his colour came back. Donal and the Sergyar boy had done well, he thought, although Roic... Gregor was used to that awful sick feeling of guilt you got when someone stood between you and the guns - and at least they'd only been stunners and not nerve disruptors, right up till last. 

Roic, though, had been quick as a whip, dealing with Miles without a flicker of panic when the little auditor started to sieze. And then turning back like lightning to hit the emergency button that turned the Retiring Room into a Panic Room when he spotted the gunmen. It was sheer bad luck that there had been at least two gunmen, the efficient one with the stunner and the other one, the one who had a time-of-isolation projectile weapon. Whoever that one was, he had been desperate enough to fire into the ceiling of the room containing his emperor and yell "No!" as his putative hostages were sealed off from him. And it was the merest of flukes that had let the bullet chip the marble coving and the chip hit Roic a glancing blow to the temple. It was an incapacitating but not, Gregor trusted, dangerous wound that was currently colouring his knees and his marble floor with Roic's blood.

At least, he hoped, that had been their final shot. There was no sound of firing coming from outside - and projectile weapons were *noisy*.

So... how did the emergency drill go, he thought? "What do we have, and what do we need", that was it.

Well, the Emperor of Barrayar thought, we have four unconscious men, two not-quite-walking wounded, and one extremely pissed-off emperor. There was a comconsole, of course, but it was disabled somehow. The panic room had an emergency screamer and they'd set that off before Roic's head had hit the ground - and Gregor was going to see THAT in his nightmares for some time now. What else? Air? Gregor didn't have Miles' expertise in crawling through ductwork but he vaguely remembered an exciting afternoon's expedition when he and Miles had both been of a size to get away with it, and he still remembered the way the ducting had been divided into sections by metal grilles that even an eleven year old emperor and his five year old companion couldn't get through. Air then, yes: but the weapons-grade filtration and security system wouldn't let anything else in. Or out. Food and drink? The leftovers from the "small informal dinner" at the residence would keep them all alive for a month, if ImpSec really didn't have a better idea in the meantime. Weapons, that was the thing. He had his stunner, of course, as did Miles, and no doubt a quick frisk of Aral, Simon and the armsman would turn up a few more; perhaps even Cordelia's Sergyaran might have something interesting up his sleeve - he'd certainly been quick to stand with Roic and Donal between his Emperor and his enemies.

"You're thinking too hard," Miles said, "I can hear you from over here."  
"Actually, I'm trying hard NOT to think," Gregor said grimly. Because Roic was bleeding into his lap and although that was the unspoken compact between the emperor and his subjects, blood for Blood, that didn't mean the emperor had to like it when it was entirely non-metaphoric.  
"Get your head out of your ass," Miles advised.  
"Miles, the building is sealed! The room is sealed! We're in here, and there are madmen with guns holding the rest of my dinner party hostage..."  
"Yes. The rest of your "small, quiet, family" dinner party," Miles grinned. "Think about it for a moment, Gregor. Laisa had gone upstairs with Ekaterin to put the kids to bed. The nursery wing would have sealed at the first hint of trouble, long before Roic sealed us in here, and besides, the security on that wing is fiercer than your own perimeter. They're perfectly safe." A pressure Gregor hadn't realised he was feeling lifted. "In fact," Miles wheezed, "think about it." What in the worlds was wrong with him? "The bad guys are trapped... out there... with ... my mother..." Good heavens, was he laughing?

"Think about it!" Miles chortled. "Their main targets are inaccessible, all they have captured are a few ... helpl..." He was, he was laughing too hard to speak...."Helpless females!"

And then suddenly Roic opened his eyes and threw up on the Emperor's undress greens and Simon and Aral started to stir and, yes, Gregor found his lip had started to twitch at the thought of who else had been at dinner. Two gunmen, facing down helpless women like Alys, Cordelia, three of the Koudelkas... 

###

When Alys opened the panic room door, hair dishevelled, nerve disruptor in hand, she found six men lying on the floor howling with laughter, guarded by that nice Sergyaran boy of Cordelia's. Honestly, men!


End file.
